Kitchen Extension Glass or Glazed Roof - are they worth the expense?

From my own experience most kitchen extensions will incorporate an element of glazing for a section of glass roof simply for added natural light and for the design effect or feature that it provides. I would personally avoid a fully glazed glass roof for a kitchen extension simply for practicality and cost reasons.

A fully glazed glass roof for a kitchen extension will usually require a specialist patent glazing system that can be expensive. This can also cause detailing and weathering problems at the abutments for other wall and roofing materials. Also, by having a fully glazed glass roof for a kitchen extension can cause non-compliance problems of the thermal performance for the kitchen extension which can become difficult for your house extension designer or architect to get through Building Regulations.

My advise would be to utilise standard glazed joinery items that are designed to be installed with flat or pitched roofs and to avoid patent glazing systems within a kitchen extension. These would be items such as standard roof lights from Velux or fakro as an example. You need not have a ‘token gesture one’ unit either - why not consider grouping a series of glazed units close together for a great modern contemporary design effect from inside and externally.

This also allows an area of traditional roofing that can still be insulated or even super insulated to allow for the extra colder glazing. SAP proving calculations may also be required from a specialist if the new glazed glass roof area for the kitchen extension exceeds 25% of the extension floor area.